RESULTS...from the bottle drive & more

My friend, Mari Lynn, and I took most of the bottles in to the Superstore today. What a hoot! We had 154 pop bottles to put through and at one point the manager came out to tell us to stop because we had backed up the moving belt! When he came out and saw we had another whole cart full of bottles he almost dropped. We were laughing and having a great time with it all! We wanted to take the bottles to the Superstore because you get the full deposit back. If you take bottles to a bottle exchange place they only give you part of the deposit. We managed to fit all 154 bottles in and we got $45.70. We took 98 beer bottles to the bottle exchange and got another $9.75 for a total of $65.20. Not too bad considering we only did 3 small streets! Mari Lynn and her family offered to go with us next time with their van and help us collect.

Caleb raised $70 so far from his birthday collection. There are a few cards that haven't arrived in the mail yet. We'll keep you posted.

We also received $180 in donations from friends so far. I have a few more bottles and donations to pick up this weekend and we'll let you know the final count.

We are wiring the donations on Monday or Tuesday to China. We are hoping the children will get their new snowsuits by the end of next week! Exciting! I can't wait to see pictures of them wearing them.

Just a note...Chris and I have received some really wonderful emails and encouraging notes from people all over wishing to help our family with this adventure. Because so many people have expressed an interest in loving these beautiful children we will be adding a donate button on our blog. It may take me a bit to get it up and working so stay tuned :-) If you want to join us in sharing our love, that would be wonderful. If you want to share in our adventure in other ways you can pray for the children in Alyssa's orphanage and all the nannies who care for them. You can also add us as a link to your blog or website. And please, tell all your friends about our blog. It is our prayer that families all over the world will be inspired to reach out and love these children.

With much anticipation...

Tammy

Alyssa in her orphanage at 14 months (Dec 2004)